Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett attended classes taught by Fred Terman at Stanford and became acquainted with David Packard during his undergraduate work at Stanford. He and Packard began discussing forming a company in August 1937, and founded Hewlett-Packard Company as a partnership on January 1, 1939. A flip of a coin decided the ordering of their names. The company incorporated in 1947 and tendered an initial public offering in 1957. Hewlett was president of the Institute of Radio Engineers in 1954. Also in 1939 he married Flora Lamson, and the couple eventually had five children: Eleanor, Walter, James, William and Mary. There are 12 grandchildren.
He was President of HP from 1964 to 1977, and served as CEO from 1968 to 1978, when he was succeeded by John A. Young. He remained chairman of the executive committee until 1983, and then served as vice chairman of the board until 1987.
A young Steve Jobs, then in grade nine, had called up Hewlett requesting a part for a frequency counter that he was building. Hewlett was impressed with Jobs' gumption and offered him a summer job. Jobs then considered HP one of the companies that he admired, regarding it among the handful of companies (Disney and Intel were the others) that were built “to last, not just to make money”.
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